Few World Cup freebies this time

This year’s Rugby World Cup is just a short flight away and Australia’s chances of victory are growing, but only a handful of brokers and bankers will be travelling to New Zealand.

Despite administrators’ best efforts to broaden its appeal, rugby remains a niche sport in most of Australia. Not in Sydney’s close-knit financial services community, however.

The city’s financial core is “diehard rugby union territory", as a head trader at one of Sydney’s leading brokerage houses puts it.

But with investment markets suffering their worst crisis since the Great Depression and undergoing another bout of heightened volatility, corporate hospitality in the investment sector has dried up. In stark contrast, four years ago an equity bull market was raging and fund managers were being inundated with offers of tickets.

Geography – the tournament was being held in France – was no impediment. Anyone with an office in Europe could concoct a reason to go and all-expenses-paid trips were not uncommon.

“If it was 2007 you would have taken 40 fund managers and no one would have batted an eyelid," one broker says.

If this year’s market turmoil wasn’t bad enough, compliance departments have cracked down on entertaining, making the largesse for which the industry was once renowned a memory.

Simon Poidevin, a 59-Test Wallaby who previously headed Citigroup’ corporate broking business and recently joined Bizzell Capital Partners, says brokers are unlikely to be doling out many free tickets to the World Cup – let alone all-expenses-paid trips – because they are prohibitively expensive.

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Poidevin says many prominent rugby fans in the investment industry will be “going PA" – on their personal account – to NZ and he expects interest to pick up as the series progresses.

“People will go, there’s no doubt about that. If you are patient there should be a lot of opportunities to get bargains."

Investec, which employs Fox Sports commentator and former Wallaby Phil Kearns and recently inked a five-year deal to sponsor the Super 15 and Tri Nations, will host clients at various events during the Cup.